Representing movements in several directions (immigration, emigration, return migration) and stages (leaving, journeying, arriving), the film weaves together the stories of migrants from the distant past up until recent times narrated in their own voices, through their correspondence, and in the multi-generational memories passed to their descendants.

Filmed on location at the Ulster American Folk Park – an outdoor migration museum in County Tyrone – in the enclosed setting of a dimly-lit nineteenth-century ‘old world’ mass house, the film challenges the illusory fixedness of its backdrop with an exploration of lives moving through space and time, transcending standard chronologies and uncovering universal experience beyond the Irish context.

The IX Human Rights Film Festival with the central in Barcelona and done also in NYC and Paris is directed by Toni Navarro and organised by the Mirada Descubierta entity, remains faithful to a dual commitment: on the one hand, to promote and open up spaces for the dissemination and screening of cinematographic works dealing with the defence of human rights; and on the other hand to increase public awareness and boost respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights based on the dissemination of those works.

This ninth edition is backed by an unprecedented response to the organiser’s call to participate, showing itself in nearly 3,000 audiovisual works received from all round the world.
The inaugural ceremony will take place on Thursday 17 May at 8 pm, at the new headquarters of Filmoteca de Catalunya. The ceremony will include a screening for the first time in Spain of “The Whistleblower” directed by Larysa Kondracki.
The Festival will be presenting a total of 112 films, belonging to the genres of fiction, cartoons and documentaries, 100 of them divided for the purposes of competition into two official sections: the official section of full-length/feature films and the official section of short films.
The works entered for competition will be opting for the official prizes given by the organisers, “Best Short Film” and “Best Full-Length Film“. Outside of competition, the Festival will award two honorary prizes, the “Human Rights Cinema Festival Prize“, and the “Human Rights International Journalism Prize“. For their part, the entities Amnesty International and Survival International, will be granting a further two honorary prizes.
The programme is completed with a number of parallel activities such as specialist talks by leading national and international speakers, exhibitions concerning the world of human rights, and travelling exhibitions of the Festival organised internationally.
The closing ceremony will be held on Tuesday 22 May at the Cines Girona cineman in Barcelona, where there will take place the awards of the various prizes in each official competition section, as well as of the honorary prizes.

And Europe Will Be Stunned (2011) is the compelling trilogy of films made by Israeli artist Yael Bartana, which premiered at the 54th Venice Biennale last year, making Bartana the first non-national to exhibit in the Polish Pavilion. Revolving around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, a group that calls for the return of three million Jews to Poland, Bartana’s films traverse a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and nightmares across Europe and the Middle East.

Bartana expertly mixes imagery reminiscent of the historical past with the present, and raises questions of identity and belonging, leaving us to pause and question our own concepts of home and homeland. In raising these questions regarding the complexities of cultural integration, interwoven with reality and fiction, her films challenge us to question our own understanding and acceptance of historical events.

Her film trilogy – Mary Koszmary (Nightmares) (2007), Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower) (2009), Zamach (Assassination) (2011) – is on view from 24th of March until 26th of August 2012 in Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven – The Netherlands.

Visiting address:
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

You can also attend the upcoming symposium on 18th of May at the Whitechapel Gallery in London – ‘And Will Europe Be Stunned?’ – which opens up the debates sparked by these highly ambitious and contentious films: beginning with a keynote paper from Gil Hochberg, Professor of Comparative Literature at UCLA, there will then follow a Q&A with the artist and a panel discussion with Joanna Mytkowska, Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and Jacqueline Rose, Professor at Queen Mary University.

22 May – 1 July 2012
Hornsey Town Hall
Crouch End, London

This event has been organised with the support of the Polish Cultural Institute. Tickets are available from the Whitechapel Box Office.

For those who are interested in the full version of the interview with Yael Bartana for Louisiana Museum we attach the link: